Electrical lighting has become commonplace in modern society. Electrical lighting devices are commonly deployed, for example, in homes, buildings of commercial and other enterprise establishments, as well as in various outdoor settings. Even in a relatively small state or country, there may be millions of lighting devices in use.
Traditional lighting devices have tended to be relatively dumb, in that they can be turned ON and OFF, and in some cases may be dimmed, usually in response to user activation of a relatively simple input device. Lighting devices have also been controlled in response to ambient light detectors that turn on a light only when ambient light is at or below a threshold (e.g. as the sun goes down) and in response to occupancy sensors (e.g. to turn on light when a room is occupied and to turn the light off when the room is no longer occupied for some period). Often traditional lighting devices are controlled individually or as relatively small groups at separate locations.
With the advent of modern electronics has come advancement, including advances in the types of light sources as well as advancements in networking and control capabilities of the lighting devices. For example, solid state sources are now becoming a commercially viable alternative to traditional light sources such as incandescent and fluorescent lamps. By nature, solid state light sources such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) are easily controlled by electronic logic circuits or processors. Electronic controls have also been developed for other types of light sources. As increased processing capacity finds its way into the lighting devices, it becomes relatively easy to incorporate associated communications capabilities, e.g. to allow lighting devices to communicate with system control elements and/or with each other. In this way, advanced electronics in the lighting devices as well as the associated control elements have facilitated more sophisticated lighting control algorithms as well as increased networking of lighting devices.
There also have been various other initiatives to provide communication networks and automation throughout a home or other type of building. For example, today, many buildings and/or enterprise campuses include local area data communication networks. Increasingly, some of these installations support communications for automated control and/or monitoring purposes, which may use the data network or other communication media in support of control and/or monitoring functions. For example, a building control and automation system may allow personnel of an enterprise to communicate with and control various systems, such as lighting, access control, closed circuit TV and heating-air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) equipment, at one or more enterprise premises. For home automation, applications are now available to allow a user to operate a mobile device (e.g. smartphone or tablet) to communicate with and control smart devices in the home, such as appliances, HVAC and audio-visual systems. To the extent that these developments in communication and automation have considered lighting, they have only included the lighting related elements as controlled outputs (e.g. to turn ON/OFF or otherwise adjust lighting device output) and in a few cases as sensed condition inputs (e.g. to receive data from light level or room occupancy type sensor devices of the lighting related equipment). The focus of such communication networks or automation systems has instead centered around other perspectives, such as around control of HVAC or other major enterprise systems and/or around the relevant user/data communications aspects (e.g. mobile devices and associated applications).
Conversely, as more and more devices become intelligent and may utilize data communications in support of new features and functions, the demand on data communication within the premises skyrockets. However, some portions of the data, particularly portions of data generated by or within lighting devices, may only be appropriately communicated to one party, such as an owner or resident of a premises, while other portions of the data, including similar or different portions of data generated by or within lighting devices, may only be appropriately communicated to another party, such as a monitoring or service bureau. Given the traditional approach of a single communication interface within an intelligent device and/or a single data network within the premises connecting intelligent devices, isolation of portions of data becomes difficult.
There is room for further improvement.